Jesse Scheckner
Despite a wave of bad headlines, a better funded opponent and an electorate that on paper still leans Democratic, Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe has secured a second term representing coastal Miami-Dade communities in House District 106.
With early votes tallied, mail-in votes partially counted and all 47 precincts reporting, Basabe had 51.3% of the vote to defeat Democratic former state lawmaker Joe Saunders in one of the most-watched Florida House races this cycle. Saunders took 47% of the vote, while no-party Mo Saunders Scott, Saunders’ estranged aunt, took less than 2%.
The result caps a whirlwind two years for Basabe, who won the HD 106 seat in 2022 by a razor-razor thin margin. Much of the attention he received since wasn’t the positive kind, and Saunders aimed to parlay Basabe’s legal troubles, public image issues and meager legislative accomplishments into a win Tuesday.
He fell short of that goal.
HD 106 covers several coastal northeast Miami-Dade County municipalities, including Aventura, Bal Harbour Village, Bay Harbor Islands, Golden Beach, Indian Creek, Miami Beach, North Bay Village, Sunny Isles Beach and Surfside.
Historically a stronghold for House Democrats, 32.4% of voters in the district are registered with the party today, compared to 27.6% who are registered Republicans. Outsizing them both are the district’s third- and no-party voters, who make up the remaining 40%.
The district was long represented by Democrats, most recently Joe Geller, who ran this year for the Miami-Dade School Board. But in 2022, Basabe defeated Democrat Jordan Leonard by less than half a percentage point in what many considered Florida’s biggest state-level upset of the year. Since then, L2 data shows HD 106 has turned slightly redder, this year adding 1,852 Republican voters compared to 1,049 Democrats.
Controversy has followed Basabe since his narrow victory, at least some of it inarguably of his own making. He’s engaged in several spats with other politicians and been the subject of two House investigations into battery and sexual harassment accusations. Both were dismissed for lacking evidence.
His accusers have since sued him and the House. The case is ongoing.
Then in late October, the Miami Herald reported that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was investigating a man’s claim that Basabe had drugged and raped him in 2003.
Basabe has fervently denied all wrongdoing, calling the accusations and coverage of them “malicious and defamatory” in an Oct. 23 video.
Basabe, 46, brought back millions of dollars in appropriations to his district, and few can accuse him of not engaging with locals and the city officials who serve them. Still, the bad press and disturbing accusations cast a pall over Basabe’s re-election effort, adding to the disdain some have for him over his support of legislation to further limit LGBTQ inclusion in public schools, allow the permitless carry of firearms and fund Gov. Ron DeSantis’ headline-catching migrant-relocation program.
Compounding this was that despite being a part of GOP supermajority, he successfully sponsored just one bill in two years, though that might be more because many of his proposals resemble things a Democrat would file. One would have doubled the state’s current six-week limit on abortions to 12 weeks. Another would have deleted a ban on same-sex marriage from the Florida Constitution.
Basabe did not vote on the six-week ban. But he did vote against scores of amendments Democrats filed to soften its effects and later blamed the minority party for the bill’s passage.
Saunders, 41, has served for well over a decade as Political Director for LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida — a major antagonist of Basabe’s this cycle — and as a founding member of the Florida Reproductive Freedom Coalition.
He also works as an adjunct professor at Florida International University and is a partner to the Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence.
He made history in 2012 as one of the first openly gay lawmakers elected to the Legislature, but served just one term representing the Orlando area and successfully sponsored just one resolution before losing his re-election bid.
State records show he’s been a registered Miami-Dade voter since 2019.
He vowed, if elected, to carry and support legislation that addresses housing unaffordability, protect LGBTQ rights and abortion access (if Amendment 4 fails), and to get a handle on Florida’s insurance crisis by requiring insurers that take state bailout dollars to lower premiums.
He wants to provide condo owners with low-interest loans for repairs and state-mandated special assessments.
His platform also prioritized arts and culture funding, resiliency planning and funding, and a four-point plan to revive the health of Biscayne Bay.
Less than a week before Election Day, Saunders was well ahead in fundraising, having amassed $511,000 and spent $373,500 since May. The Florida Democratic Party also gave him $112,000 worth of in-kind aid, earmarked for staff, taxes and health care needs.
Basabe, meanwhile, raised more than $406,000 this cycle. That includes a $250,000 self-loan he may be able to fully recoup; as of Oct. 30, he had $257,692 left to spend. He also enjoyed ample support from the Republican Party of Florida, which gave him $73,500 worth of in-kind aid for texting, research, polling and campaign staff costs.
Saunders enjoyed an unobstructed path to the General Election, so he was able to use all his resources to focus on defeating Basabe.
The same wasn’t true of the incumbent. Basabe faced a lone Primary challenger, lawyer and financial consultant Melinda Almonte, who took 38% of the vote Aug. 20 despite raising just $1,175 in outside funding to add to $38,000 she loaned to her campaign.
That isn’t to say Saunders didn’t face difficulties. Scott, 63, ran something of a spite campaign against ner nephew over long-standing family issues that predate his birth.
She raised $1,800 since June to support her campaign, all of it her money. She did little to no campaigning for HD 106 and exhibited little familiarity with the district. In an X post on Oct. 24, she conflated Miami-Dade with Palm Beach County.
While testifying Aug. 1 in a lawsuit Saunders filed to unsuccessfully remove her from the ballot after she’d changed her name on the ballot to “Moe Saunders” — her actual name is Maureen Saunders Scott, and she agreed in court to compromise with the name “Mo” — Scott revealed she’d had phone conversations about her HD 106 candidacy with both Almonte and Basabe.
She also interacted with Basabe on social media to offer dirt on her nephew. Basabe and Scott have otherwise denied their campaigns are intertwined.
If she won her ultra-long-shot House bid, Scott said she would “advocate for true support for our LGBTQ youth, along with advocating for survivors of sexual assault and women’s rights.”
